The terrifying inaction of the west to the unprecedented epidemic of Ebola

A burial team wearing protective clothing prepare the body of a person suspected to have died of the Ebola virus for interment, in Freetown. Credit: Reuters

It’s been more than two months since I travelled to west Africa to report on Ebola and the situation has exceeded many of the most dire predictions. The number of dead is now in excess of 3,000 with some suggesting hundreds of thousands could be infected by Christmas.

In Sierra Leone the number of cases is doubling each month. Five new cases an hour. Think about that for a second. What is terrifying about Ebola is not the virus itself which can be defeated with simple measures, it’s the west’s inaction in the face of an unprecedented epidemic.

Health workers surround an Ebola patient who escaped from quarantine. Credit: Reuters

The perversity of the scenes in west Africa are summed up by a single image: a man contorted in agony at the side of a busy road in Monrovia, a crowd gathered round, too terrified to get close, let alone help. The man is slowly bleeding to death, but no one will put him in an ambulance or give him first aid. They think any contact will be a death sentence. The man has been there for four days, slowly dying; a metaphor for western inaction in some eyes.

Britain is providing some help. It’s building a treatment centre near Freetown that will eventually have 100 beds for the public and twelve beds for infected staff. It’s part of a wider aid effort by the UK that will see 700 beds built over the coming months. But with 765 new cases reported in Sierra Leone last week alone, according to Save the Children, the demand massively outstrips the supply.

Supplies, including 100 tons of emergency medical aid. Credit: Reuters

There is also concern about the official figures of those who have died from Ebola. As of 21st October the government in Sierra Leone claimed only 10 people had died in greater Freetown. But ITV News has seen an unofficial list of victims from just one cemetery, showing more than 200 victims by that date. That’s just one cemetery in a city of more than a million people. It’s already a disaster but without urgent action, it will become a cataclysm